This an absurd idea. All you would be doing is giving an inmate a weapon to be used on either staff or other inmates. I would be more concerned about that than any other reason. We are at risk every day, at any given time to be attacked by an inmate with a shank, a pen, you name it. Why in the world would any officer want to hand them the same thing and use the excuse that it would cut down on disease!!?? As for reducing an officers risk for exposure to disease, I totally disagree. Tattoos are not the only reason these diseases exist. We knew going in, and are reminded yearly in training, the risk of exposure and possibly contracting these diseases. We treat every inmate as if they are infected. You will always risk being exposed to disease and blood. I was also involved in a Use Of Force years ago and did contract blood on me on or near a scab on my arm. I got so scared I couldn’t remember if it was in the scab. This inmate was active AIDS. Scared the heck out of me. I too went through the testing and praying. Giving tattoo guns to inmates will not cut down on disease. It will not reduce the risk of exposure to contaminated blood. It will only put more officer’s lives at risk from a weapon handed to them from the very people they are against. I agree with all the other reasons not to give them to them also.
And to the person who made the statement to the lady officer, I am a female officer. I’ve been in corrections for over 23 years! All that time I’ve worked at the same county jail. I’ve been a Lt. since 1998. Yes I do make regular rounds in the pods with the inmates, including maximum security inmates and I do it by myself a lot of times. Makes some of the male officers nervous, but I get paid to do the same job they do. I don’t appreciate the remark you made to her just because she is female!

I have to agree with some of the responses. It is a bad idea. As far as disease goes, yes, they can transmit it to other inmates, but you are giving them something that can be used as a weapon, and you know the tattoos are going to related. Now they can get gang tattoos with ink that only shows up under a black light. If you don’t know what you are looking for, it just looks like a red area on the skin, but put under a black light, you can clearly see the tattoo. I can see Crips and Bloods and MS-13s coming in and getting these tattoos and people putting them in the same cells. There is enough crap going on that we do not need sanctioned tattoos. BADIDEA.

True it will be a waste of time.Knowing inmates too.They gotta go against the system .Us vs Them.the smoking and tobacco ,never ending .. I make my rounds,they show me respect,they don’t smoke in from of me..They are dumb enought to do it, a ticket they can’t beat in court line..I have too after so many of my charges got thrown out or degraded…Tatoo program pros and cons,,lower the rate of diseases.proctects us and the public but knowing them they will screwed it up…

The fact is inmates will ink with or without our help. Now I know there are way too many ink shops around and really don’t want inmates shooting gang tats in prison. Though if we were to regulate it there would be less disease spread by this. I look at it as the tobacco in Ohio now. I spend most of my day chasing down a few roll ups in a lock because this new black market is ridiculous. Officers are being walked out because there is enough money to be made to grab the greedy but now they can’t give you a felony for it because it is not against the law to convey tobacco (they need to update the law). I used to do something worthwhile like break up gambling rings and find drugs or weapons. Now on top of that I have to chase the kids smoking in the bathroom. We waste sooo much time chasing cigarettes while the inmates generate thousands of dollars in grey market funds. We busted a guy who made almost as much as I do in a year simply moving tobacco in the prison. He between commissary trades and cash transfers made over $40,000 I assume this number is low because one pouch if distributed right can bring in over $400 and he averaged 2-3 pouches per haul.
I got way off topic. But knowing inmates they would still do ink the old way and the tattooing class would just be a waste of time a resources.

Yea our dept. went away from the full go cell extractions a few years back as well. I along with many others here I’m sure came up with the full go training and it benefited me tremendously. When I did go into a cell for the 1st time years ago I was more than prepared because the training had been more intense than the real thing. Yes I agree getting dinged up is part of being a CO, new generation has no idea.

By the way DT, we here ae finally getting back in gear with SORT training. At least now with another new director we are teaching the basics of field force and forced cell moves. But still no live practice, too many injuries they say. Whats with this new generation of co’s, dings are part of the business. I got the sarcasm, very subtle:-)

Ok, at first glance this is gonna look like I’ve gone hug-a-thug, rainbow sprinkles, charmin and snuggle bear soft. Truth is I do care about inmates getting diseases, infections and the likes of. Why? Not because I feel the need to worry about them but because I feel the need to worry about the well being of fellow staff, the general public, my family and myself.

Inmates are at high risk for having diseases and and crap already, now does anyone want to go try and take down an inmate with a known disease and exposed fresh blood? I sure don’t, unless I have to. Second part is inmates usually get out back to the streets. Far as I’m concerned the less people walking around the general public and my family with some nasty ass diseases the better. Kinda like CPR, I learn it not only cause I have to but if I ever need it to save someone I care about.

I do see both sides, as a way to try to control the trend of inmate tattooing and keep it contained and that part I do see the merits. However with the STG ties to certain tattoos, the disease and infection issues and the way inmates turn everything into a blackmarket one way or another I see a lot of problems with it too.

Are they NUTS? Follow this progression here. Inmate gets tat, contracts some bloodborne pathogen. Gets in fight with officer, bites officer and officer contracts same pathogen. While this scenario is born out often and the probability of body fluid exchange minute, it still presents many issues. In 1987 whilst I was a CO in a state facility somewhere between Wa and CA I was involved in Forced Cell move and was bitten by moron inmate.Known homosexual inmate and was required to take a blood test every 2 weeks for 6 months for HIV. Since we didn’t know much about HIV contraction then we had to take reasonable precautions, tough on marriage at that time. So do they want to really increase the possibility of cross contamination tghat is already a problem in prison.

Oh yea, topic. As far as I see it I’m for wharehousing so anything like that goes against my better judgement. If dude wants to get a bloodborne pathogen for a tattoo then who am I to complain? I will issue the “ticket” and we’ll both go about our day. Hopefully I don’t have to deal with any of his open sores during a use of force………

Is Tought ,,,some of the best tattoo I seing,,the inmates…cheat am artistic,ex girlfriend a tattoo artist charge me an arm and a leg,and these bastards get theirs for two packs of smokes…….Irish you got a point but liked Slim said "let them gived all the diseases they want…..

I like the tower idea, maybe then I could get a weekend off lol. Far as inmates doing tattoos, ugh I don’t think it’s a very good idea. Yes there are pros and cons (no pun intended) on both sides of the arguement. I however don’t like the idea of teaching inmates the trades of half of my side business. Yes I am a CO who HAS tattoos and works part time in the tattoo shops. Let the arguements on that one begin….

I really don’t think it’s a bad Ideal. Heck anything that can bring in a few bucks to the prison system that might help the department from closing or privatizing a prison or part of it is always a good thing. Looking at it from this point it would open up a new post for security plus bring in a teacher to teach the health and safety proceedures. But then again we could just keep doing what we’re doing and pay the medical bills associated with Mrsa and other transmitted diseases, keeping the high possability that an officer might come in contact with an infected sourse. It most likely won’t stop the other inmates from doing tattoos on the side but it could help reduce the spread of infections to staff also. So save some money, make so money and hopefully save or create a new job, a win,win.

Funny Commander. I used to say that the state could save money by pulling all officers out of prisons except the tower officers. They could do a monthly supply drop in the middle of the yard from helicopters and let the strong survive. When an inmate’s parole date comes up the tower officer would make an announcement that the inmate has 24 hours to reach the gate for parole. If he doesn’t show up he is considered dead.

Absolutely not in any way. As others have said the liability for the facility, the safety of officers and the inmates having a weapon makes no sense at all. The next thing will be giving inmates needlepoint, Macrame and tie-dying shirts. We need to get away from all these programs that are supposed to make inmates feel better while endangering officers and staff.

Have to say I got a kick out of reading the first couple of responces to this thread. I say bad idea to give inmates needles that staff can get stuck with. They can give each other all the diseases they want, but I don’t want to get them.

I don’t think its a good idea because it would promote the spread of disease more. If the institution is going to supply or allow the inmates to buy the supplies and make sure that they practice safe santitized instruments then I don’t see a problem with since they do it unsafely now.

i think that allowing inmates to resposibly do tattoos will give them an outlet for some of there frustrations. theres alot of talant behind those bars and maybe if they have a talant that can help them reform and do well once they are let out they will have more of a chance to stay out.